Demand for better beer foments a new brewery boom in Milwaukee

10 more breweries to open before end of year

Henry Schwartz, owner of MobCraft Brewery, holds a beer called Wheat Men Can’t Jump at the company’s new brewery at 505 S. 5th St. MobCraft moved its brewery from Madison to Milwaukee last month. Photo gallery at jsonline.com/photos. Credit: Angela Peterson

Last week, MobCraft Brewery opened at 505 S. 5th St., making Milwaukee its permanent home after brewing in Madison for the last four years.

Last month, lines of people crowded an east side sidewalk to be the first to visit Good City Brewing, 2108 N. Farwell Ave.

Ten more breweries are opening throughout the metro area by the end of the year.

So why the sudden beer boom?

"It's just Milwaukee's time," said John Holl, editor of All About Beer magazine and a frequent visitor to Wisconsin. "There's a demand for better beer these days, and local beer."

What made Milwaukee famous a century ago is back — but with a modern twist. Where Schlitz, Pabst, Blatz and Miller once jockeyed for national domination, smart breweries today take advantage of their local nature.

The Brewers Association estimated that retail sales of craft beer reached $22.3 billion last year, with the number of craft breweries jumping from 3,676 in 2014 to 4,225 in 2015.

"People are going to farmers markets more," Holl said. "They're going back to butchers. They want to know where their food comes from. People want to know where their beer came from."

Making beer is a transparent process at MobCraft, where oversize windows offer a view to the brew. Vintage mismatched chairs form a conversation pit in one corner. The long bar — made from floorboards on which audiences once danced at Turner Hall Ballroom — re-imagines the brewery version of an Edward Hopper painting.

At least four more breweries will open in town before summer calls it quits.

The Brewers Association says at least two craft breweries open each day in the United States.

While that's great for consumers, there's only so much retail shelf space and tap space at local bars. The taproom might be the customer's first introduction to the beer.

All along, the plan for Good City was "community," said Dave Dupee, who owns the east side brewery with Dan Katt and Andy Jones. Customers are expected to "hang out over great food, great beer" to encourage conversation and friendships.

Third Space Brewing based its name on a concept popularized by social commentator Ray Oldenberg, who charted three spaces for everyday life — home and the workplace were numbers one and two.

"Third spaces are the anchors to the community life that serve as gathering places, fostering broader and more creative interaction," co-owner Kevin Wright said.

In the Menomonee Valley, City Lights is renovating the former Milwaukee Gas Light Co. building, designed at the beginning of the 20th century by architect Alexander Eschweiler.

Jimmy Gohsman, brewmaster and a partner in City Lights, said plans call for a top-floor bar area in the tower and barrel aging.

In the meantime, the brewery will concentrate on a two-level taproom and an outdoor beer garden.

A toast to Minneapolis

In Minneapolis, focusing on the neighborhood fueled growth for Indeed Brewery and helped draw new breweries as neighbors.

Tom Whisenand, Indeed's owner and president of the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild, admitted he had been nervous about competition after nine breweries followed suit in the same northeast neighborhood.

The good news: "Craft beer drinkers love variety," he said. "Every time a taproom opened up, we only seemed to get busier,"

Whisenand said online ads for rental units would describe vacancies by their location to breweries. Food trucks and tour groups grew around it in the neighborhood.

Fourteen Milwaukee craft brewery owners took a page from Minneapolis' live-and-let-pour playbook to form the Milwaukee Craft Brewery League last spring.

From a tourism perspective, the boom in breweries helps sell Milwaukee's brewing heritage and has the potential to be "a moneymaker for the region," said Kristin Settle, director of communications for Visit Milwaukee.

"We can send them to different neighborhoods and they can still have that brewery experience," Settle said.